001 PROLOGUE: WITHOUT A NAME
002 CHAPTER 01: OF GODS AND MONSTERS
003 CHAPTER 02: AN UNLIKELY EMISSARY
004 CHAPTER 03: AN ADVENT TO SHADOWS
005 INTERMEZZO: WHITE NOISE
006 CHAPTER 04: SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION, THE BOY-AVATAR AWAKENS
007 CHAPTER 05: STORM ON THE CELESTIAL CASTLE
008 CHAPTER 06: THE PATH TO DECIMATION
009 INTERMEZZO: THE LAST PAWN
010 CHAPTER 07: EIGHT YEARS AGO
011 FINAL CHAPTER: THE WISDOM FROM FRIENDS
Blink blink.
Dimness. Dust. My consciousness wakes. I feel a certain density slowly pressing down on me, filling my lungs with... water? Yes, all around me was nothing but water, yet I feel not the fierce struggles of drowning. There is only the sensation of both ascending and descending, of floating. And complete and absolute silence. At peace, I stay like this for a while.
Only the movement of dust suggested the passage of time here. So slow, so minute was their progress that I could not be sure if only a second had passed or an eternity. I was left contemplating on this.
Eventually, I found a voice. "I am. I am. I am," I repeat this to myself, but my mind could not seem to walk past it. The concept of who I am is closed off to me, and a wall shaped of smoke and shadow guards its secrets jealously. Still, I press on, and like a song or a prayer, I chant, "I am. I am. I am..."
And then I stop. I hear a faint voice in the distance. I float towards what I perceived to be its source, warily. The voice grows in volume, but no more discernible, like a chattering of a hundred angels. My movement becomes urgent, hurried. Upward and upward my legs propelled me until, at last, I find myself breaking through the surface.
I discover it is night. Moonless, but a vast field of stars stretches endlessly above. The voice is relentless. Treading water, I look around. After a while, I see a pulsating light in the distance. The voice strengthens. I swim.
Hours seemed to drag on; a glacier in my mind. As I swim, my head twists from side to side, seeing nothing but the white specks of stars splattered on dark canvass and the wide expanse of obsidian water spreading out in all directions. In front of me, occasionally, the light pulses intensely.
It wasn't long before fatigue begins to weigh on my limbs and the voice becomes oppressive, forming sharp, solid words assaulting my senses. At the exact same second when my arms are about to give in and my legs collapse from under me, the light explodes to a spectacular nova. And within moments, I felt the searing of flesh and a dagger-sharp pain through my chest. "The time is now," the voice imploded in my head. I screamed.
Blink blink.
Dry. Steam. I stir, and find myself on dry land. I feel the jagged sharpness of the untamed earth biting into the flesh of my back and legs as I move to sit my body upright. I seem to be naked, but somehow it does not matter. I hold on to a protrusion of rock on the wall beside me to steady myself while I stand.
I look around. It must be nearing dusk. Nothing but boulders and pebbles and the occasional jet of steam permeate my vision. Something in the distance catches my eye. A sudden bluish spark. My hand never leaves the assurance of the wall of rocks beside me as I limp towards the object, glinting as a jewel would perched on top of a hill under the setting sun -- like a proud, old queen on her throne. But as I neared it, I noticed it wasn't a jewel at all. It was not even small. I walked around another hill of rocks to expose the entire body of my discovery.
A small, narrow tower stood before me, almost twice my height. Four sides it has, all black as soot. The corners were lined with glyphs, all ancient, crackling with crimson energy. And at every facet, three ribbings running parallel from base to tip exposed what was inside -- the slow, languid flow of cerulean manna.
Doors start to open in my mind and fear creeps into my veins. I climb the beside the tower to have a farther view of this strange, seemingly barren land. Upon reaching the summit, all doubts flew from my mind. Scattered across the terrain, almost hidden in between the rise and fall of volcanic rock, were a smattering of blue-glowing towers. Mana ports. And in the distance, far to the south, set upon the sky like an obsidian bauble, were the dark spires of Montt. I am in Ignis. This very spot is Sinner's Inheritance.
I fall to my knees. This is all wrong, somehow. I clutch my chest. I feel a certain emptiness, a sense of something lacking, something incomplete swimming inside of me. I shouldn't be here.
"The time is now," said a sing-song voice in my head, the tone suggesting a warning. It made me look up. Below me and to the right, on the rocky path, I sensed the approach of something dissonant. Something ominous. I turned my head to look at the path below and behind me, but plumes of smoke obscured my vision.
I heard before I saw. It was a horse. On it was... a man? A woman? The hood and cloak concealed enough for me not to be entirely sure. The arms seemed slim from this distance but the legs that straddled the beast looked lean and masculine.
As it neared, however, I noticed something strange about its periphery. Human, its life signs suggested, emanating an ordinary frequency as Humans would to the Weave. There was something different about this one however. Something disparate. And then I saw it. Or rather, I felt it. Time slowed to a crawl. The yawning emptiness in my chest raged as the rider passed. I crumpled to the ground as the pain wracked in waves through my mind. I struggled to keep my vision open, boring through the rider with my eyes. There it was! A flicker, as if in resonance to my own, and absolutely separate from the Weave -- the same black throbbing emptiness that I possess.
I struggled to my feet, trying not to convulse in the intense pain. I must follow it. And, without knowing how I did it, I took to the air and followed it.
